Quoting a founder from Y Combinator's winter 2013 class, Graham recently tweeted, "I tried to be as cynical as I could but it still wasn't cynical enough."

What that implies is that investors are simply motivated by their own interests and are not to be trusted.

Shah speculates that maybe the founder just isn't talking to the right people, or maybe YC's Demo Day attracts people prone to cynical behavior.

Shah notes that he's not an insider, but is simply lucky enough to work with a few YC-backed companies.

"[...] it makes me sad because not only is it petty, and not only is it directionally wrong (based on my experience), and not only does it potentially influence a founder to learn bad behaviors themselves," Shah writes. "But ultimately I think one could switch around the words 'founder' and 'investor' in his tweet [above], and perhaps more often then anyone would like to admit, have the quote read quite similarly."

Update: An earlier version of the article's headline suggested Shah was "offended" by Graham's tweet. This was not the case. We apologize for the error.